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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!

i've been going for 3 months to lessons. I tried this about a month in, got the first page pretty down but felt it was a tad outside my level. while i didn't feel i COULDN'T do it. I felt that I was spending MORE time trying to do this song than just doing things in my level progressing and coming back to that. So I did that for a month. I'd like to try again. What do you think?

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"Doesn't practicing on the piano suck?!?!""The joy is in the practicing. It's like relationships. Yeah, orgasms are awesome, but you can't make love to someone who you have no relationship with!"

Without even looking at what the link shows, yes you can. There's no reason or need to think yourself incapable of learning anything. A better question might be if it could be deemed sufficiently purposeful to put forth the effort required to try and learn it in earnest with your current abilities/experience. I'd say yes. Like most other pieces as a beginner, the coordination between hands might trip you up at first, but with slow deliberate practice of small sections, it will just get easier and easier.

yes, i most definitely don't think its "unlearnable". More-so I don't want to waste my time learning something that will take me so long that it detracts from my actual progress.

Thank you for those links, they RULE!

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"Doesn't practicing on the piano suck?!?!""The joy is in the practicing. It's like relationships. Yeah, orgasms are awesome, but you can't make love to someone who you have no relationship with!"

I agree with Bob, naturally. My question is always, "Do I want to spend six months on this, or wait a year until I can better handle it, and only spend a week on it?" Typically, in the meantime, I'll learn a hundred small(er) pieces, and then this one will seem like a breeze. Who knows? After a year of doing that, you may be able to tackle the more difficult version!

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Every day we are afforded a new chance. The problem with life is not that you run out of chances. In the end, what you run out of are days.

Sweet06, I think we always need to have a piece we are working on just outside our playing level. Ambition is a wonderful driver and for some it makes the day to day practice which can seem like drudgery easier. I have been going now for ten months and tackled a few pieces which were above me. In some cases it worked out fine and I got a real confidence booster. In other cases I had to admit I was not ready and leave the piece until later on. However whether a piece worked or not they would teach me something new or show up a weakness I would have to work on. So if it doesn't interfere with your current works I would say go for it.

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If this life is a simulation can I not be in the easy version where Bach was a drummer

It doesn't look too hard for a beginner. I'd say it's definitely playable. No #/b in the key signature to remember, pretty repetitive in the left hand. Only thing would be where your note recognition skills are. Take it to your teacher for some guidance if you have trouble.

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"Doesn't practicing on the piano suck?!?!""The joy is in the practicing. It's like relationships. Yeah, orgasms are awesome, but you can't make love to someone who you have no relationship with!"

It does seem a little out of what most 3-month piano can do, you have complex rhythms in the RH, lots of accidentals, a lot of both hands playing simultaneously (and doing two completely different things). All this together, I think it is a bit of a stretch, but I don't know what you're playing now and how well you can do it. What does your teacher think?

ok, that leads me to my next question. You're a piano teacher Morodienne.

Typically, when do you think a new beginner could attempt this. Given average skill/progress.

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"Doesn't practicing on the piano suck?!?!""The joy is in the practicing. It's like relationships. Yeah, orgasms are awesome, but you can't make love to someone who you have no relationship with!"

ok, that leads me to my next question. You're a piano teacher Morodienne.

Typically, when do you think a new beginner could attempt this. Given average skill/progress.

Hmm, normally, I judge based on skills not time studied. The skills needed for this piece that I stated before, I would expect an adult beginner to be able to attempt (but it would still be a challenge) after 6-8 months. - with LOTS of assumptions here.

So have you brought this piece to your teacher, who I think is probably the most capable person of answering your questions? Don't be afraid to, as a teacher, I personally really like it when students have something they want to learn. It tells me the kind of music they like, and it also gives me a game plan. I can gear the lessons towards getting them to the level of being able to play said piece. Especially since this piece is not like Rachmaninoff's 2nd concerto or something

We worked on it a month ago, I got the first page pretty down. The 2nd page was taking copious amounts of time and i thought it was taking away from time i had for easier pieces in order to progress, so we put it off. I just finished a 12 bar blues piece that has the left hand bass progression along with some relatively simple melodies all hands together. thats what really gave me the confidence to think about returning to that piece. I felt the hands together and blues rhythms were a bit challenging, especially hands together. But my god is it fun to play the song hands together with a constant bass line!!!!

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"Doesn't practicing on the piano suck?!?!""The joy is in the practicing. It's like relationships. Yeah, orgasms are awesome, but you can't make love to someone who you have no relationship with!"

We worked on it a month ago, I got the first page pretty down. The 2nd page was taking copious amounts of time and i thought it was taking away from time i had for easier pieces in order to progress, so we put it off. I just finished a 12 bar blues piece that has the left hand bass progression along with some relatively simple melodies all hands together. thats what really gave me the confidence to think about returning to that piece. I felt the hands together and blues rhythms were a bit challenging, especially hands together. But my god is it fun to play the song hands together with a constant bass line!!!!

Then give it a go again and see if the 2nd page is a bit easier. Sometimes it's good to take a few runs at a piece to see how much time it would take to master it.

We worked on it a month ago, I got the first page pretty down. The 2nd page was taking copious amounts of time and i thought it was taking away from time i had for easier pieces in order to progress, so we put it off. I just finished a 12 bar blues piece that has the left hand bass progression along with some relatively simple melodies all hands together. thats what really gave me the confidence to think about returning to that piece. I felt the hands together and blues rhythms were a bit challenging, especially hands together. But my god is it fun to play the song hands together with a constant bass line!!!!

Then give it a go again and see if the 2nd page is a bit easier. Sometimes it's good to take a few runs at a piece to see how much time it would take to master it.

I often take multiple runs at pieces -- it gives you downtime, so the material doesn't get stale, and it allows your brain to do that critical "subconscious thinking" thing between runs.

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Every day we are afforded a new chance. The problem with life is not that you run out of chances. In the end, what you run out of are days.

so i re-learned the first page and it came back QUICK. I was discouraged at first as I thought I'd have to start all over but the next day I was doing good again! the 2nd page i know have some practicing techniques I had since learned (ie how to tackle the harder things) and its going well! hopefully in a month I'll have this perfected

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"Doesn't practicing on the piano suck?!?!""The joy is in the practicing. It's like relationships. Yeah, orgasms are awesome, but you can't make love to someone who you have no relationship with!"

Definitely great news! I always like to go back what I or students were working on before. Fun to see the progress. I always tell students that the material doesn't change, but your perception of what is hard and what is easy does. Your example is also a lesson in the benefit of putting something hard away for a while and coming back to it later.

Thought I'd look up Koji Kondo before going further ...he's a middle-aged Japanese "Games" music composer ...and his Legend of Zelda (played by a full orchestra) hasdrawn much praise.

But then I have just played and recorded the first page forkeyboard and find it "a pretty little tune" ... After the first 4 measures, the lilting treble floats upwards, while the bass grumbles below in repetitive 2-note chords.

My advice would be to go for it ... as a beginner, you won't find it easy to play both hands at the same time,but with practice the two hands will happily begin to chime.

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"Doesn't practicing on the piano suck?!?!""The joy is in the practicing. It's like relationships. Yeah, orgasms are awesome, but you can't make love to someone who you have no relationship with!"

I'm not clever enough to download my recording (being just a dumb romantic architect) ... and concentrating for the moment on bigger stuff like Beethoven's Appassionata (will I ever get it right?) ... but if someone can (in very basic Internet language) tell me how to record, I might be able to be of assistance.

However, in the meanwhile, start working through "The Legend" one measure at a time.

well do you have some way to digitally record your playing? if so what are you using to do that? a computer? a phone? a microphone? MIDI?

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"Doesn't practicing on the piano suck?!?!""The joy is in the practicing. It's like relationships. Yeah, orgasms are awesome, but you can't make love to someone who you have no relationship with!"